The ASPCA

The first anti-cruelty laws were enacted on behalf of animals, not children, but the founding of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in New York by Henry Bergh in 1866 proved fortuitous, for its applicability to human needs was recognized almost immediately.

"The children of New York are sadly in need of a champion . . ."
(The New York Evening Telegram, 1866)

"It is not alone the lower animals that are subject to
ill-treatment and cruelty."
(The Northern Budget, Troy, N.Y., 1867)

Within four years, Bergh enlisted Elbridge Gerry as ASPCA counsel. The sensitivity imbuing these men with concern for animals also filled them with distress over the maltreatment of children.

Mary Ellen

In the winter of 1873, in a New York neighborhood called "Hell's Kitchen", a rooming-house janitress told a church worker about a case of child cruelty. Dedicated and compassionate, Etta Wheeler made discrete inquiries and determined to rescue the abused child, a little girl named Mary Ellen. When others declined to intervene, Wheeler approached Henry Bergh and Bergh appealed to Gerry:

"No time is to be lost -- instruct me how to proceed."

Gerry made clever use of an obscure section of habeas corpus to secure their legal standing. The "Mary Ellen case" was a classic child protective intervention. Within forty-eight hours of Wheeler's initial report, an investigation was conducted, a petition filed, a protective removal effected, a hearing commenced, a temporary placement arranged and a criminal prosecution in preparation.

"I was in a courtroom full of men with pale, stern looks.
I saw a child brought in . . . at the sight of which men wept aloud.
And as I looked, I knew I was where the first chapter
of children's rights was written . . .
For from that dingy courtroom . . . came forth
The New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children
with all it has meant to the world's life."

Jacob Riis

"My name is Mary Ellen ____. I don't know how old I am; my mother and father are both dead; I call Mrs. C____ momma; I have never had but one pair of shoes, but can't recollect when that was; I have no shoes or stockings this winter; I have never been allowed to go out . . .except in the night time, and only in the yard [to use the outdoor privy]; my bed at night is only a piece of carpet stretched on the floor underneath a window and I sleep in my little undergarment with a quilt over me; I am never allowed to play with other children; momma has been in the habit of whipping me almost everyday; she used to whip me with a twisted whip -- a rawhide; the whip always left black and blue marks on my body; I have now on my head two black and blue marks which were made by momma with the whip, and a cut on the left side of my forehead which was made by a pair of scissors in momma's hand; she struck me with the scissors and cut me; I have no recollection of ever having been kissed and I have never been kissed by momma: I have never been taken on momma's lap or caressed or petted; I never dared speak to anybody, because if I did I would get whipped; I have never had . . . any more clothing than I have on at present . . . .; I have seen stockings and other clothes in our room, but I am not allowed to put them on; whenever momma went out, I was locked up in the bedroom;. . .I don't know for what I was whipped; momma never said anything when she whipped me; I do not want to go back to live with momma because she beats me so."

Mary Ellen was placed in a loving home, married, raised a family of her own, and died at the age of 92 in 1956.